A year ago, I would've been hunched in this same compartment, trying to make myself invisible. Hair in my face. Shoulders curled in. Hoping no one would notice me.

Then the summer happened.

Mum says it's just growing up. Dad says it's good genes. My mirror says I actually look decent now—clearer skin, sharper cheekbones, hair that finally cooperates. All those years of being the ugly Slytherin, the one the boys sneered at and the girls whispered about behind their hands. And now?

Now I catch people looking twice.